In the art, the conventional vehicle roof rack structure is formed by a plurality of crossed bars including longitudinal bars and transverse bars. The longitudinal bars are mounted to the right and the left rims of a vehicle roof, while each of the transverse bars is structured to connect the two parallel longitudinal bars by crossing spatially the vehicle roof. By providing such a formulation of the longitudinal bars and the transverse bars, a carrier space such as a luggage tray, a luggage box, a carrying frame or a ski rack can be formed for on top or roof of the vehicle.
Referring to Taiwan (R.O.C) Patent Publication Number M267119, a locking structure of a vehicle roof rack structure is disclosed. In this disclosure, a fixation block and a fixation plate are furnished with individual clamping portions. On top of the clamping portion of the fixation block, a slot is structured to mount fixedly a transverse bar. In addition, a plurality of anchoring grooves are disposed under the slot to receive insert protrusions of the fixation plate. By having bolts to screw-fix the fixation plate and the fixation block, the whole assembly can be mounted onto the longitudinal bars via the clamping portions. In particular, the insert protrusions are disposed above the clamping portion, and screw holes for engaging the bolts are disposed under the clamping portions. While the clamping portions are applied to fix the longitudinal bars, the bolts penetrate through the fixation block to engage the fixation plate. By having the fixation block and the fixation plate to clamp firmly the corresponding longitudinal bar, two opposing ends of the transverse bar are located into the corresponding slots of the fixation blocks, the bolts then penetrate the respective fixation blocks to further engage the corresponding ends of the transverse bar, and thus the transverse bar can be fixed between the two longitudinal bars.
Nevertheless, the aforesaid vehicle roof rack structure does have the shortcomings as follows.
1. Insufficient locking: vulnerable to get loose, and hard to be fixed
2. Inconvenience for assembling: While in assembling the longitudinal bars and the transverse bars, different bolts shall be applied for structural fixation. Namely, during assembling or dis-assembling, many different bolts are required to complete structurally the fixation or locking, from which the inconvenience arises.
3. Extended labor time for assembly and/or dis-assembly: Due to difficulty in assembling/dis-assembling, plenty of labor time is inevitable.
Accordingly, an improved vehicle roof rack structure that can be effectively and sufficiently locked and conveniently assembled/dis-assembled is definitely welcome and urgent to the skill in the art.